McRaven’s delusional, dangerous national security strategy
By Robert Jensen
November 29, 2015
In these cases, a desire to control the flow of oil and oil profits, not humanitarian principles, dictated U.S. policy. Thats what we mean by imperialism. Throughout the post-WWII period in which the United States has dominated global politics, the United States has consistently ignored the legitimate democratic aspirations of the people of the developing world, including the Middle East, in favor of support for regimes that cooperated with U.S. planners goals.
ISIS doesnt represent those legitimate aspirations, of course, but we arent likely to formulate a coherent strategy without an awareness of how the people of the Middle East view the United States. The success of U.S. pop culture around the worldthe spread of blue jeans and hip hop musicshould not be confused with support for U.S. policies. Even after the abject failures of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraqagain, on both principled and pragmatic criteriaU.S. politicians and pundits seem unable to grasp that these failures were tied to the United States delusional dreams of dominance. The right strategy is to reverse that course and renounce the unilateralism that folks such as McRaven euphemistically refer to as leadership.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/mcravens-delusional-dangerous-national-security-strategy/
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)The ability to follow orders without question and goal oriented execution without regard for collateral damage.
Questioning the legality of your mission is not a part of your job description.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)in the 40s they hired Carleton Coon to translate FDR's Four Freedoms speech and thought that'd bring the Berber horsemen down on the Vichy forces; Reagan meant it when he called the mujahedeen and Contras (ISIS without the legitimacy) "the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers" because Jack Abramoff had carefully presented an image of red-blooded fighters for apple pie and open doors for Alcoa; African Maoists who said they were God mouthed Paine and the Bible
Israel, too, had ridden Entebbe and Eagle Claw to portray itself as a more successful version of America--as downright Christian, even (never mind those kibbutzes and strange Likud ideologues); Operation Gladio's occult-fascist trolls insisted they were shielding *true* democracy from totalitarians undermining it through fair elections
nowadays we've just flopped from one proxy "American" to the next, always wiping the slate clean and saying this time we got it right: we dropped the mujads and after 9-11 insisted over and over that Islam needed a "Reformation" (which codes for "modern," "tolerant," "peaceful," "Enlightened democracy," and so on): the Mideast had to stop listening to theology and their ulema and just let it hang, maybe smoke a bowl and lay a girl, because after all OBL is just doing what all the imams are saying: too bad everyone forgot that 1. we'd pulled all of this with Ali Shariati and 2. the non-elementary school version of the Protestant Reformation meant persecution of gays, a sharp decline in women's status, and heavy destruction of religious sites and images; in Afghanistan we got glitzy TV extravaganzas where Afghan women had their veils removed (to which RAWA smacks their collective heads) and we cheered when the Iraqis got their satellite dishes--now they can watch Nick at Nite like the rest of the world!
8 years later, we're thinking that Twitter was about to modernize, democratize, secularize everyone, from Kabul to Marrakesh--to *Americanize* it, because what we think these foreigners want looks an awful lot like our ideal vision of the US (whichever it may be); then we're utterly floored that they have their own culture and history, and flounder on to the next group to have a crush on: those nice Sunnis from our nice Gulf allies hate the ulema (so modern--so Protestant!) and the dictators we don't like any more--win-win!
a Libya later we move towards shaping Syrian rebels--so moderate! they hate genocide and tyranny! how DARE anyone even HINT that Syrian Sunni rebels could have EVER had ANYTHING to do with Ghouta! every single blowback weve had has happened because we badly misread the Mideastern situation; every proxy army has known that it needs US money and favor so it molds itself to hit all the American tick-boxes of the administration in power at the moment and the Americans pushing it: all the rebels tailor themselves to present a nice face to their sponsor, who believes that the group that seems most similar to Dem or GOP values is the one we should pick and support
so what's next? already the Mickey Z. types (and Eustonites, hilariously enough) see Rojava as being made in their image: an "ungovernment" that will no doubt get the same US hysterical reaction when it's rather less democratic, anarchistic, and feminist--less American, less Western--than we'd thought; Clinton likewise backs the MeQ as feminist/secularist/blah-de-blah-de-blah
this misreading is baked into our culture: after Bacatlan everyone easily assumed that these were rigid theocrats, lustful yet afraid of women like every Dan Brown villain, lashing out at any sort of infidel merriment, shaking in rage that people were drinking and singing in their own country; and yet the shooters lived off of beer and cannabis and had plenty of sex
perhaps a brutal example, but one that hits close to home
Brave fellow.